Moscow Exchange.Chapter 3

The chill inside the Lada was no longer just the Moscow weather; it was the icy hand of the operation itself closing around them. The microcassette burned a psychological hole through Alec’s coat and into his ribs. Anya drove with the focus of a woman who had just committed professional suicide.

"Who is the voice?" Alec asked, staring out at the passing, grey landscape of the Moscow suburbs.

Anya kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, watching the dark, pine-lined route unspool. "A low-level archivist who decided patriotism was less valuable than hard currency. He is dead now. A heart attack." She made the word sound like a professional diagnosis, not murder. "But before he succumbed, he copied things. Disks. Tapes. He spoke of a long game. A ghost in the machine that runs both our countries."

"A mole," Alec stated.

Alec ran a hand over his tired face. "Sir George—my superior—set this entire exchange up. It was his final briefing to me. He made it sound routine, a perfect capstone to my career."

"Perhaps it is, in a way," Anya murmured. "A capstone to both your careers."

The urgency of listening to the tape became paramount. The car was moving too quickly to risk using a player now, but stopping was even more dangerous.

"We need a place where we aren't moving," Alec said. "Somewhere to use this."

"There is a safe house near the Polish border. Used for defectors coming east. Abandoned now," she replied. "The keys are under the dash."

Anya pushed the Lada harder, the engine whining in protest. They were leaving the city lights behind, diving into the deep, dark anonymity of the Russian countryside.

They reached the safe house three hours later, a dilapidated farmhouse smelling of dust, dried leaves, and profound emptiness. It was cold, silent, and exactly what they needed.

Inside, by the fading light of a battery-operated lantern found in a kitchen drawer, Alec located a bulky, ancient cassette player. He loaded the tape.

The static and hiss that followed filled the small room, making the silence that followed seem even deeper. Then, a voice emerged—strained, low, British, and utterly terrified.

"...They are bringing him back. It's the only way... Twenty years he's been inside... the perfect cover. The data he holds... the whole program compromised..."

The voice broke off into a choked sob. Then, a new voice, calm and cultured—a voice Alec knew intimately, a voice he had trusted for decades.

"...It's a shame about the heart, old boy. Such a messy organ. We can't have this getting out, can we? The honour of the service..."

Alec froze, his blood turning to ice water. He knew that voice. It was the same one that had given him his orders in London just two days ago.

It was Sir George.

Anya watched Alec's face in the flickering lantern light, the shadows mapping the moment of absolute, soul-crushing betrayal. Alec had been played from the very beginning. The exchange wasn't a trade; it was a repatriation of the greatest weapon the Soviets had ever deployed.

Alec reached out a shaking hand and clicked the 'stop' button. The silence returned, heavy and final.

"We can't go to Berlin," Alec stated, his voice hollow. "We have to stop that scientist from ever reaching British soil."

Anya nodded once, resolutely. "We are officially off the grid, Mr. Caine. You and I are weather now."